Effect of non-genetic factors on lifetime milk production and productive life of Murrah buffaloes

Introduction

The dairy industry in India is heavily reliant on buffaloes, particularly the Murrah breed, due to their significant contribution to milk production. Murrah breed of buffalo is considered to be the best milk-cum-meat breed. The home tract of breed is around the Southern part of Haryana comprising the districts of Rohtak, Jind, Hisar, Gurgaon and Delhi. Home tract has relatively hot and dry climate. In any breeding programme it is important to bring about the improvement in production performance traits so as to select the best performing individuals. These production performance traits were influenced by several non-genetic factors like parity, period of calving, season of calving which have significant effect on full expression of these production traits. Difference in season weather summer or winter, availability of fodder in different climatic areas and also different manage mental activities of farm manager largely affect the production traits. Therefore, the present investigation was conducted to study the effect various non-genetic factors on production performance traits in Murrah buffaloes. The success of this industry is largely determined by the lifetime performance traits of these animals. Accurate phenotypic values of milk production traits are essential for estimating genetic parameters, which are crucial for developing optimal selection criteria in planned improvement programs. Additionally, the genetic evaluation of animals necessitates adjusting phenotypic measurements for non-genetic factors to ensure precise estimates of genetic parameters and breeding values. This study aims to analyze the effect of various non-genetic factors on Lifetime Milk Production (LTMP) and Productive Life (PL) in Murrah buffaloes.

Materials and Methods

Classification of data:

The data on longevity traits was classified according to parity, period of calving and season of calving.

Period of calving: Due to the changes in feeding and management practices over the particular time interval, there might be variation in the expression of different traits of animals in different periods of calving in the farm(s). Assuming that there is not much variation in adjacent years, entire period of twenty-four years will be divided into 6 periods, each consisting of 4 consecutive years:

Period

Statistical analysis

In order to overcome non-orthogonality of the data due to unequal subclass frequencies, least squares and maximum likelihood computer program of Harvey (1990) using Henderson method 111 (Handerson, 1973) will be utilized to estimate the effect of various tangible factors on various traits under study. The following mathematical model will be used to explain the underlying biology of the traits included in the study.

Where Y ijklmn Is the n th record of individual of the i th sire calved at j th farm, k th period, l th season and m th parity µ Is the overall population mean si Is the random effect of i th sire hj Is the fixed effect of j th farm pk cl rm Is the fixed effect of k th period of calving Is the fixed effect of l th season of calving Is fixed effect of m th parity b1 and b2

Are linear and quadratic partial regression coefficients of age at first calving on the traits, respectively? Xijklmn

Is the age at first calving? X⁻ Is the mean of age at first calving? eijklmn Is the random error associated with each observation and assumed to be normally and independently distributed with mean zero and variance σ 2 e.

Result & Discussion Least squares means and factors affecting different longevity traits

The analysis of variance and least-squares means for longevity traits are presented in the Tables 1 and2, respectively

Productive life (PL)

The overall least-squares mean for PL was estimated as 1275.24± 31.82 days. The overall least-squares mean for PL was estimated as 1275.24±31.82 days. Comparable results were reported by Dev (2015) [4] and Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] in Murrah buffaloes. A higher estimate of PL was reported by Chander (2002) [2] and Thiruvenkadan et al. (2015) [14] in Murrah buffalo. Gowane and Tomar (2007) [8] reported lower values than the present estimates. This type of differences might be partly attributed to the varying herdlife span, no of observations and type of data recorded.

(a) Farm: The analysis of variance revealed non-significant effect of farm on PL. The productive life was highest on farm 1 (1290.71±48.65 days) as compared to farm 1 (21259.78±43.59 days). The productive life was highest on farm 1 as compared to farm 2. Significant effect of farm was reported by Bashir et al. (2007) [1] .

(b) Effect of period of calving: The analysis of variance revealed highly significant (p<0.01) effect of period of calving on PL. The PL was highest (1688.02±16.12 days) in period 1992-95 and lowest (846.83±11.13 days) in period 2012-15. The PL showed a decreasing trend across the periods. The PL showed a decreasing trend across the periods. Dutt and Taneja (1994) [6] and Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] reported that the effect of period of calving was significant on PL in Murrah buffaloes. However, Dev et al.

(2016) [5] reported non-significant effect of period of calving on PL. (c) Effect of season of calving: The effect of season of calving on PL was non-significant. The Productive life was highest (1292.58±55.73 days) in autumn calvers and lowest (1255.88±46.98 days) in rainy calvers. The Productive life was highest in autumn calvers and lowest in rainy calvers. Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] and Dev et al. (2016) [5] reported non-significant effect of season of calving on PL in Murrah buffaloes. However, Bashir et al. (2007) [1] reported that the effect of season of calving was highly significant on PL in Nili-Ravi buffaloes. (d) Regression effect of age at first calving: Effect of age at first calving (linear as well as quadratic) was found to be non-significant on PL. However, Thiruvenkandan et al.

(2015) reported highly significant effect of age at first calving on PL in Murrah buffaloes. The regression coefficient (-0.038±0.12) of AFC on PL indicated that with one day increase in AFC there will be corresponding decrease in productive life by 0.038 days.

Life time milk production (LTMP)

The overall least-squares mean for LTMP was estimated as 5586.42± 17.96 kg. Kuralkar and Raheja (2000) [11] , Singh and Barwal (2012) [12] , Kumar et al. (2015) [10] and Thiruvenkadan et al. (2015) [14] reported comparable leastsquares means for LTMP in Murrah buffaloes. Dutt et al.

(2001) [7] , Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] and Dev et al. (2016) [5] reported higher least-squares mean for LTMP in Murrah buffaloes. The differences in means of lifetime traits may be due to the differences in defining and editing data on trait, variation in parities included, herd health and reproductive status (a) Farm: The analysis of variance revealed highly significant (<0.01) effect of farm on LTMP. The lifetime milk production was highest on farm 1 (6106.69±26.49 kg) as compared to farm 2 (5066.15±23.81 kg). The lifetime milk production was highest on farm 1 as compared to farm 2. Similar results were reported Bashir et al. (2007) [1] .

(b) Effect of period of calving:

The analysis of variance revealed significant (p<0.05) effect of period of calving on LTMP. The LTMP was highest (7098.53±86.56 kg) in period 1992-95 and lowest (3895.63±61.16 kg) in period 2012-15. The LTMP showed a decreasing trend across the periods. The LTMP showed a decreasing trend across the periods. Tiwana et al. (1994) [15] and Kamaldeep (2014) [9] in Murrah reported that the effect of period of calving was highly significant on LTMP. However, Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] and Dev et al. (2016) [5] in Murrah reported nonsignificant effect of period of calving on LTMP. This differential productivity of LTMY over periods could be attributed to availability of green fodder, climatic condition and managemental conditions. [7] , Chaudhari, M. (2015) [3] and Dev et al.

(2016) [5] in Murrah buffaloes reported non-significant effect of season on LTMP. However, Singh et al. (2011) [13] reported significant effect of season of calving on LTMP in Nili-Ravi buffaloes (d) Regression effect of age at first calving: Effect of age at first calving (linear as well as quadratic) was found to be non-significant on LTMP, decrease in CI from 1st to 5th parity. However, highly significant effect of AFC on LTMP was reported by Thiruvenkadan et al. (2015) [14] . The regression coefficient (0.44±0.65) of AFC on LTMP indicated that with one day increase in AFC there would be corresponding increase of LTMP by 0.44±0.65kg.

Conclusion

This research demonstrates that non-genetic factors, especially the farm and period of calving, significantly influence the lifetime performance traits of Murrah buffaloes. Understanding these effects can help in devising better management strategies to improve the productivity and longevity of dairy animals. Future research should focus on integrating genetic and non-genetic factors to develop comprehensive breeding programs that enhance the overall performance of Murrah buffaloes in the dairy industry.

References

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